


But Nobody Came

by BadTimeChronicles



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Study, Dark Humor, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, again the canonical kind, also some slight gay because i cant help myself my b, cant fucking believe i wrote a monastery fic, general headcanons, i dont know man this is my first ao3 beyfic, of the canonical kind, warning: chapter 2 contains vforce
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5364257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadTimeChronicles/pseuds/BadTimeChronicles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Kai Hiwatari and your life is kind of a mess. [A sort of character study on Kai throughout the series, including the Borg and beyond G-Revolution, in second person POV.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a power that big comes with a bigger expense

**Author's Note:**

> based off of undertale/earthbound's chilling line: "but nobody came". a couple more undertale references are in here, too. shit was really inspiring okay. fight me. 
> 
> also like kai's head is a fucking nightmare. someone help this child. he is like twelve and he is broken.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't you know that a power that big comes with a bigger expense?

There are things all kids learn once they have spent enough time in the monastery. 

The first and most obvious is that this is not a religious place. The only things worshipped here are training, obedience, and victory. 

Second, of course, is that no matter how strong you thought you were, how talented people said you were, how you were chosen for this, you are not up to the standards set by this place. You will not be for a very long time. Maybe you won’t ever be.

The rest are all along those lines, but the most important and difficult lesson kids find themselves learning is this: there are no friends here. Not the other children, and definitely not any of the adults. 

In fact, the most important thing you learn in this place is that you are alone.

You are always alone.

\----

The new kids always scream, the first few nights. It’s annoying, you think, if only because it keeps you awake. Some of the older kids scream, too, and you think that is just pathetic. Besides, if they’re caught, they’re usually-- well.

This place saves its lenience for the new kids. 

It is normal, you know, for the new ones to wake up with nightmares. To cry and scream because they are still getting used to this. This new life. What will be their new normalcy. So it’s annoying, but you tolerate it. You learn to sleep through screams and tears and muffled screaming until they learn to stop expecting anyone to care.

Sometimes the kids don’t only scream at night, of course. There’s not much difference in either scenario. They scream, and scream, and beg and cry and ask for help, and nobody comes for them. 

The difference is that usually you never see the kids who scream during the day ever again.

\----

You used to scream, too, the first few nights.

You learned very quickly to stop.

\----

You don’t remember how long you’ve been in the monastery. 

However much you feel like it, you know you haven’t been here your whole life. You can’t recall the details of it, but you know there was a before. Logically, then, this is the after. But how long has the “after” been? Does it even matter, when you know you’re going to be here forever? 

This is your life, now. 

You don’t know how you feel about it. 

You love what you do. You love getting stronger. 

The rest…

Well. It doesn’t matter. 

No one will come for you anyway. You learned that long ago.

\----

Your grandfather calls to talk to you on video conference, sometimes. 

Volkov stands with you in his office as you answer questions on your progress and training curtly. His presence is, as usual, unwanted. You tell him that. 

He laughs. 

You know the other kids wouldn’t get away with that, but the other kids would also not be standing with Volkov in his office on the phone. You have certain privileges, Volkov had told you once, voice cloying and sweet, talking to you like he liked you. You said you didn’t need favors. You were already better than most of the others here. He’d laughed then, too. 

So. Every other week, you stand in Volkov’s office and give a report to your grandfather, and this is considered a good thing. You don’t argue, even though sometimes you want to. 

He is the one who put you here. He is the one who put all of you here. 

You can never put into words how you feel about that.

\----

It’s not like he’d come for you anyway.

Nobody ever comes.

\----

When they show you the ultimate bey, the perfect culmination of magic and science-- the strongest of all weapons-- you quickly grow truly angry for the first time at this place. Not because of the bey itself, but because you are not allowed near it. No one is. 

What good are privileges if they can’t let you have that? You’ve never wanted something so much in your entire life. You consider asking your grandfather to make Volkov let you have it, but almost immediately you dismiss the idea. You cannot rely on anyone else. You know that. 

You decide to get it yourself. 

If you master it before they catch you, it’ll be fine. 

\----

The labs are dark and silent until you break the glass. You hold your breath but nobody comes to check. You let it out, relieved, and immediately go for the bey. 

It feels right, in your hands. You launch it. You don’t recall ever feeling like this, not even Before. It’s simply amazing. 

But something goes wrong. 

No.

 _Everything_ goes wrong. 

The light the bey shines is bright and yet everything is going darker and darker still. Distantly, you hear someone screaming. It takes you a while to realize it is you. Why are you screaming? You know it won’t change anything. You try to rationalize it even as your screams intensify. You have to stop. Nobody will-- nobody comes-- nobody ever--

 

but

s̀ó͠m̴̛̕͟è̵̢͘͟t̸̡͟h̴͢i͡͞n͝g̷̷̕͜͡

came.

\----

nobody was better nobody was better nobodywasbetternobodywasbetternobody

n o b o d y w a s b e t t e r

\----

 

 

 

 

 

 

You don’t remember much from Before. 

You know your name. You know your grandfather. You know Beyblade. Anything else is… fuzzy. But you are young, still. You can’t imagine any memory you had to be that important. 

\----

...You also know that sometimes, in the middle of the night, you wake up screaming and don’t know why. You only truly calm down when the night around you stays silent and nobody comes to your call. 

You have the distinct feeling that nobody is better than the alternative. 

\---- 

Holy beasts are creatures that come when you call. Isn’t that power exhilarating? Isn’t it invigorating? 

Your grandfather leaves you alone so long as you look for them. You want to, anyway, you think. It’s a fascinating concept. A power that answers to you and only you. 

In the middle of the night, you stare at your bey and tell yourself it doesn’t count as someone answering your calls. Nobody does that. 

You are alone, still. 

You like it that way.

\----

You tell the other kids who insist on following you that when it comes down to it, in a battle, you are alone. Nobody will come. 

You don’t think they really get it, but it’s fine. 

They’re just pawns, anyway. 

\----

You finally see some new holy beasts and get roped into travelling all around the world to find the rest of them. This would be great if it wasn’t for who you’re travelling with. 

You thought the pawns you surrounded yourself with didn’t get it, but these kids are even more grating. You try to deal with it as best you can but finally snap when you’re told you’ll have to rely on one another to win. 

You want to argue, but instead you just walk away and seethe. Arguing with adults has never ended well for you. 

(Had it?

When had you ever…)

You feel dumb, walking around a foreign country and thinking of what you should’ve said as you pass by local kids playing the only thing you care about. Still, the idea that winning means relying on other people-- it’s stupid. You should’ve stayed and told them all that, when it comes down to it, everyone is alone in the world. That no one can or will help.

It’s just… 

You don’t think you can tell them why you know that as a fact. They’d have all disagreed on a purely emotional basis, and … you don’t have a counter-argument. 

It’s just something you know. Shouldn’t they know? Shouldn’t they realize? 

The only thing in life you can can rely on is yourself. 

\----

Where the fuck are you.

\----

You think you’ve found your way back to being able to go to a place you somewhat recognize when you hear those stupid kids fighting with strangers. 

It doesn’t seem too out of character for them-- that is, after all, entirely how you’d met them in the first place-- and you’re planning on just walking by and leaving them be when you notice the bey heading straight for one of them. He won’t be able to dodge it, you realize instantly.

You don’t recognize what you’ve done until after it’s happened and your bey is back in your hand. 

You…

Just now, what did you do? 

Hadn’t you spent the past while thinking of circumstances like these in the first place? 

If this had been-- no one would have come.

(Been... what?)

You don’t have time for this. You rationalize to yourself that it doesn’t count. You need them, yes, but not in any kind of personal way. You tell them so yourself. After all, you can’t exactly fight the world in a team tournament without your team, no matter how useless they are. 

The words feel like ash in your mouth, and none of them look fully convinced.

You are not having a good day. 

\----

The holy beasts were a nice surprise, though. 

\---- 

Unfortunately, outside of that team, this tournament is a joke. You don’t bother fighting because no one is worth your time. 

You’d thought the stupid kids on your team were useless and weak, but at least they were worth a fight. Emotional babies, sure, but decent enough in the stadium. … More than decent, if you were being honest. 

These, though… Most of them don’t even have holy beasts in the first place. This whole tournament feels like a waste of time. The only team strong enough to interest you has emotional baggage with one of your teammates for leaving them. 

It’s pathetic. 

It’s even worse when that emotional baggage comes back to bite him in the ass when he hesitates against one of them in battle. He loses his holy beast because he didn’t want to _hurt_ the other kid. Like that’s something that even matters. Isn’t he the one who left them in the first place? 

You tell him exactly what you think of that blunder. Maybe now he’ll learn.

As you’re walking back, you realize with a jolt that you’re _angry_ about it. That surprises you. Had you actually expected better out of him? You must be more sleep-deprived than you thought. 

You never expect anything out of anyone. 

Nothing anyone else does matter.

\---- 

They want to go after him and you tell them to leave him alone.

They do not listen to you. 

You don’t give a shit.

\---- 

You catch yourself giving them advice in battle and, look, there is only so much of them missing obvious solutions you can take. So that’s that. If you have to carry them through the entire tournament you fucking will.

\----

You somehow make it to the semi-finals only to be reminded once again that your teammates are idiotic children. 

Two of them are missing and you are going to be disqualified. You watch the kid anxiously looking at the door but they don’t show up. You can see it in his face, how he’s calling for them. How he wants them here. You think you’ve seen that look before, on someone else’s face. That stupid, hopeless look.

(But nobody came then. Nobody ever comes.)

You…

You tell yourself it’s because you can’t stop here and now. You are, after all, looking for something, and you don’t intend to stop for a technicality. The look he gives you still nearly makes you falter. 

Is that what it looks like, you think, to believe others will come to your aid? 

It’s not for you, you want to snarl and lash out. You are not doing this for any of them.

You don’t say it, because there is no point. He knows. You’ve made it quite clear.

They cannot expect you to save them.

\---- 

You feel relief cloying at your throat when the other two show up in the nick of time and want to puke. 

YOU ARE _ABOVE_ THIS

\---- 

They somehow manage to win the finals. You’d almost thought it impossible. 

They keep thanking you for the advice. You’re pretty sure you nearly lost your shit at one of them, but if calling it advice makes them feel better, whatever. You don’t care. You’re just glad you managed to make it further. 

There are more holy beasts awaiting you, you know.

\----

After all that, being home is a nice reminder of what the real world is like. 

Your grandfather hounds you on holy beasts and you resist the urge to roll your eyes. Why did he think you’d gone through all of that--all of that, with those people? It hadn’t been for their soothing presence. You just shrug it off, though. You can’t talk back to your grandfather. Your privileges don’t extend that far.

(...What?) 

You spend most of your single day off before America training, so you only come to your room late at night after dinner and the one-sided conversation with your grandfather. Someone (the butler, maybe?) left a copy of the sports section of a newspaper on your desk and you pick it up on the way as you drop unto your bed. Your own smiling face stares back at you. 

You don’t even remember smiling for the photo. 

(Do you even remember smiling at all? Ever?)

You bunch up the article without reading it and throw it away. You try to dismiss it as a stupid reflex. It’s just a picture, after all. 

\----

You don’t sleep that night.

\----

America’s a good reminder to not expect anything out of anyone, as proven by the PPB’s director when she uses her own son to gather information on the enemy. 

It’s a ruthless but fair tactic. You’re a bit impressed. The kid is despondent, though, and the others don’t know how to cheer him up. You wonder if that’s what you looked like the first time you realized that you can never count on anybody.

(When did you realize it, anyway?)

Somehow, this leads to them trying to get information on the PPB by infiltrating the building while everyone is distracted. A spy for a spy. It’s a good idea, and the closest you come to feeling proud of any of them. You’ll also be free of them to do your _own_ investigation when they do this, which probably accounts for any pride in them you feel. 

If anyone has information on holy beasts, it’s these people.

Unfortunately your search is interrupted when you have to get the kid out of the way of being crushed as he tries to get to his mom. She turns her back on him even as he screams and yells and you think, absently, your head still ringing from the landing, that he is definitely old enough to know no one answers to screams. 

(...? What did age have to do with it?)

Anyway. She doesn’t come for him. As expected. The kid’s damn lucky you even rescued him in the first place.

\----

...What. You need them alive. 

You’ve established this.

You saw a holy beast anyway. It wasn’t a total loss.

\----

You’re sent to a remote location to train just before the tournament. The kid there to help you is a joke.

Sometimes you really fucking hate the chairman. 

Still, you deal with it, even as you roll your eyes at the childish “practice” you’re made to do. This is nothing to you, and you tell the stranger kid as much when he sees you at night. He dreams of bringing beyblade to _other people_. He makes your teammates look downright logical. 

He begs and begs for your help, and your dismissal is brutal and honest until his speech starts to sound familiar and you get an idea. 

You think expanding the effort might be worth the while.

\----

You write it off as boredom. It was fun, to see him crush your overconfident teammate. His grandfather disagrees. 

You do not argue with adults. 

That doesn’t make them less wrong.

\----

Once the tournament starts, the girl from the PPB outright just asks you to show her your moves for their data. It’s almost nostalgic to you.

(... You can’t figure out why.) 

You decide to humor her and show her exactly what data can be gathered from a show of your strength. At the same time, you notice their director in the crowd and point her out to her son. 

At the look on his face, you are once again proven that nobody coming is better than the alternative. 

After all, she only came to watch. That’s almost nostalgic, too.

(...What’s so familiar about all of this?)

\---- 

The rest of the tournament feels like more of the same. They win their battles. You point out obvious solutions when they struggle. You... 

You are getting used to this.

\----

Maybe you’re falling into a dangerous pattern. 

The thought doesn’t stop you from telling them to let the kid fight instead of you. 

It’s true you have no interest in the battle, but. 

. . . 

\---- 

When they win (because, really, you had nothing to do with it), the chairman asks you why you’re not celebrating with them. You tell them the truth: obviously, there’s even more struggles ahead. This was nothing in comparison to what must be awaiting you in the true finals. 

When you’re asked why you’re not stopping them from celebrating too, you bluntly answer that you’re not their babysitter. They know, anyway.

The laughter that accompanies your answer is extremely grating. 

You struggle to remember why you don’t argue with adults, because right now, you really, really want to.

\---- 

Getting to Russia proves to be more difficult than any of you expected. 

Still, the detour is worth it if only for the information on holy beasts you get. The idea of evil beasts is… interesting. 

(Dark.)

You can’t bring yourself to care much when the ones they show up with are so easily defeated, though. They kidnap one of your teammates and ask to take you on for him and you feel the denial forming before you ever say it. 

Like you’d rush into a trap for someone else. You’re not an idiot. 

Somehow, he doesn’t hold it against you after he’s rescued by the others. 

…

Guess they’ve learned. 

Good.

\----

He screams in the middle of the night and you wake up. You think sleepily that you thought you’d learned to sleep through screams. 

(When had that been? You’d never slept with anyone else in the room before these trips.)

For some reason, you get the urge to upgrade your bey. 

Just in case. 

\----

France is much easier to navigate than Hong Kong, you find. To be fair, you’d also had directions this time around. You’re very grateful Hiwatari Enterprise is willing to give you new technology at a moment’s notice. One of those privileges. 

(...Again with that.)

You’re making sure your bey is up to par when you see the commotion in the Eiffel Tower. It’s the light of a holy beast, and you know exactly what must be going on over there. You start running.

\---- 

You’d only come to test your bey, you say. 

You’d wanted to see the holy beasts, you tell yourself.

Deep down, both you and your team know you hadn’t thought that far. You’d reflexively gone to them because they’d needed you. 

what have you been doing this whole time

what

have you been doing

to _them_?

\---- 

They’re just kids. They expect to be rescued still. It’s not like you can just leave them in trouble. 

b̶u̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ 

You can’t. You need them for the tournament. You’re almost there.

c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶e̶?̶

You’re still alone. Just because you’re doing it for them doesn’t mean-- they’re not going to do it for you. Nobody ever comes for you. 

n̶o̶b̶o̶d̶y̶?̶

Nobody.

n̶o̶b̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶

Nobody’s better. 

\----

You don’t think anything of it. You let the rest of Europe wash over you. 

\---- 

Until you accept a challenge and you lose. 

How could you lose like this? You’ve never lost a battle so badly before. 

You’re furious at yourself. Have you become complacent? Haven’t you learned _anything_ in your life? To be beaten by someone like _that_? You can’t believe how much of an idiot you’ve been, underestimating him so completely. At least he’d made the mistake of showing you his full attack. Now that you’ve seen it, you can devise a way to neutralize it. 

You’d spoken of giving obvious solution to your team before, and there you’d been, relying on your brute strength to defeat an opponent by sheer force of habit. Like some kind of amateur. You have to get your revenge. You _have_ to. 

You’re so intent on making sure a defeat like that won’t happen to you again you forget your teammates are literal idiots until they tell you they challenged the Europeans as a team. 

Are they fucking kidding you right now. 

Do they think they’re doing you a favor? You’d have gotten him to accept the battle regardless. One way or another. He seemed easy enough to rile up. 

…

Still.

At least you don’t have to think of a way to get your rematch now, you guess. You’re sort of grateful for that. 

\----- 

He _helps_ you. 

You’re struggling-- _struggling_ , like some fucking amateur-- and he tells you an obvious solution and you. 

You take it and you win and you can’t handle it. 

No one _helps_ you. No one _comes_ for you. Not without a price. 

(Too steep. Too dark.) 

You spit wild accusations at him that make no sense. Does he want something? (Of course he doesn’t.) Does he want you to owe him something? (Friendship, probably.) You grab him and hold him there and don’t say what you really want to say. 

(Why are you like this. Why are you always like this. I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help. 

I’m alone i’m alone it’s better alone it’s better 

alone is better)

Instead you let him go to seethe in peace. You won, didn’t you? You shouldn’t be so upset. But… is it winning if he helped you? It doesn’t feel like it is. You have to win on your own. You _have_ to. 

\----

He’s never on his own, though. 

You tell them that.

Friendship might not be real but you know holy beasts are. That’s something.

\---- 

You finally arrive in Russia and for some reason, you feel listless. Shouldn’t you be happy? You’re nearing the end. 

(What do you even know about happiness, anyway.)

You’re not paying attention to your surroundings at all until they realize you’re all lost. You think back to Hong Kong with an inner grimace and hold out your hand for the map. You’re not going through that again. 

You lead them around easily. The routes around here strike a chord in you, which in turn just strikes you as strange. You keep your eyes on the map. Everything else makes you feel off-balance. It’s all familiar and completely alien to you at once. Maybe you’re getting sick. 

\---- 

If the roads of Moscow felt distantly familiar to you, it’s nothing compared to the man and the monastery he leads your team to. A pit of unease is forming into your stomach and you push around the food offered to you without really eating it. No one else seems to feel anything strange from the man. They’re all genuinely grateful for the hospitality. 

You think you might puke. 

Once lunch is over, he invites you to practice against the kids living here. You want to balk for reasons completely different than usual. Your teammates, of course, never back down from a challenge. You don’t like this. 

You look at the children of the monastery in neat rows, practically vibrating with fear at the thought of fighting one of you and it takes everything you have not to bodily drag your teammates out of here. What is happening to you? What is _wrong_ with this place? 

You’re led inside once a victim (--what? no) once a _challenger_ is chosen. You’ve never felt so uncomfortable in a building with a stadium before. You’re getting antsy. 

The man catches your eyes and smiles. You flinch away so fast you think you might get whiplash. 

Before you get a chance to ponder your reaction, the match begins. You find yourself relaxing in spite of yourself. This is familiar territory. You know beyblade better than anything else. It doesn’t take you long before you think of how to defeat this monastery boy’s technique and you’re quick to mention it to your teammate. It’s a comforting pattern, and watching him win makes you want to sigh in relief. 

(But... It’s not like him losing would’ve done anything, right?)

Of course, it doesn’t end with that. 

They drag the kid away, kicking and screaming, begging. The monk steps on his bey like it’s nothing important. Your teammates are horrified. 

He screams and screams and screams and nobody does anything. 

Nobody comes.

Winning is the most important thing here, the man says with a smile. You feel like he is staring straight at you when he says it.

You tell them to let it go. 

\----

You can’t, though. 

You can’t let it go. 

Nobody came.

He’d screamed and kept screaming and nobody came and it felt so familiar. 

You think you might never see him again and the thought makes bile rise in your throat. 

You don’t even _know_ him.

…

But you might know the rest of this place.

\----

How did you ever forget?

This had been your life. You’d _been_ here. You’d been trained here. Raised here. 

When you realize that was it, you almost feel relief. It _had_ been your life, but you got out. You have no desire to go back to it. You’re not a child to be brainwashed anymore. 

You’re stronger than that. You bat off Volkov’s hand and go.

\----

but isn’t there something else you’ve forgotten

isn’t there

something

calling you?

Nobody comes when you call. 

you’ve already gone all this way, though

You have to know. You just want to know.

\----

How could you ever forget? 

It had felt so right, hadn’t it? So

(dark)

right. 

Okay, you say. 

All you’d ever wanted was power.

\----

 

 

 

darker yet darker still darker darker darker dARKER D̷̷̜̤̝̤̭̦͎͍̬̝̦̖͂ͮͧ̃͂ͬͯͭͨͫ̐̃ͮͦ͞ͅÀ̶̧̢̨̳͈̮̱̩̖̣͙̼̹̬̝̞̜͍͔̬͕̮͌̈́ͬ̉͗́̽̀Ȑ̷̵͖̳͚̤̪̟̭̜͕̰̱͌͒ͧ̓̕͝K̢̋͐ͯ̿ͮ̏͆ͥͧͭ̆̆̆̊̒҉̷̢̯͈̩͇̺͍̫̠Ě̵̡̳̮͔̤̬̼͍̬͎͔̰̓̿ͮ͗͒͐̔R̷͍̖͍̘̲͉̘̬̼̺͈̞̝͇̖̻̱̈̇̓ͮ̀̔̒̈ͣͭ̃ͣ̂̂̉̒

 

\----

there is a riddle that goes like this: if a tree falls down in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it still make a noise? 

a better question is: if a kid spends enough time surrounded by love when they’ve never experienced it before, do they learn to love back? 

that’s a trick question

 

Y̡̞͔̦̲̻̮̼ͦ̆͌̊̃͠͞Ö̷́̉͛̎̄̃̄ͮͫ̆̎͗̒̿̈̒̏̂́҉͔͇̰͡͞U̢̨̨͖̻͚͖̫͕͙̞̰͙̺̲̣͊͑̿̓̇̃͂͋̍̚͘ ̛͙̤̼̥͕̫̞̜̥̣͎͈͚̻̝̯̦̳͓̓̓ͫ́ͨͬ͡D̷̵̡̜̤̺̫̼͓̣̹͋͑̏ͧ͊̈̚͠ͅǪ̷̡̛̤̹̬͍̜̙͎̲͈̗̬͓̻̜͉̟̜̺͐̋̾ͭͥ̍͐̂̎̚͞N̢̥͓̤̻͎̮͙͓̐ͨ̄ͬ͑̎͘͞͠'̘̤͇̖̟̼͚͎͔̮̙̆͐̇̂̒ͤͦͪ̋̅̇́̇ͫ́̒ͧ͐́͢͡T̵̡̜̗̤͍̣͚̰̺͉̖̭̝̠ͤ̿̌ͣ̒͋ͨ͂̋͋̓ͧͤ̿̇͟ ̵̴̏͗͂ͤ̈̚̚҉̷̱̞̩͓͉̰̪̬̫̣̜̪̯̺̖̬̖̻͠ͅK̢̟̬̙͕̼̜̠̳̭̠̒ͩ̊͑ͦ̈́̂ͫͪ̎̑̀͛͋́͝N̋ͦ͒͛͐̓̅̈͒͏̡̤͙͎̜͓͈̘̮͚͕͚͍̰̱͔̳̀O̫̺̖̥͈̮̟͎̱̥͒̔ͦ̾̓͂̚͢͜͡W̶̷̴̙͙̫̥̱̻̜̺̹̭̦̗̝̘̠͗̔ͣ̇ͩͣ͒̀̌ͦ̀́̑̋ͬ͛̅́͜͡ͅ ̷̢̜̥̪̫̭̟̘͖̫̘̒͆̎ͭͫ̈̽̄ͬ͑ͤ̚͢͞H̡̙̤͓͎̳̋͑͊͊̉ͤͦ͟Ô̐̆͆̏̑̽̓͊͐͗͘҉̸͔̟̝͚W̴̨͇͎̩̥̜̟͙̠̘̮̜͒̇ͤ͆̇̿́͜͝ ̛͊́̓̈́͋ͩͥ͐҉̸̠̱͉̝̯̯̣͎̲̯͙̦̠͙̠̦͎͚͎T͚̭͔̙̫̩̲͖͓̟̪̘̙̰̣͕͚̳͑̃ͦ͋ͥ̎͜Ȍ̶̈̋̔ͭ̐̂́͝͏̳͇̪̩̘̣̭͚̻̮͉̱͇̼̥̗̞͖͔ ̴͔̭̞̪̬̻̣̭̭̱ͤͫͯ͋̏ͨ̊̒̋͗ͧ͊̂ͮ͛͘͝L̴ͨ͛̾̌̑̓̂ͤͯͣͨ̌ͭͥ̆͜҉̮̬͇͚̖̰̘ͅÒͪͩͤͤ̽͗͂̃̐̿̚͢͞͏̸͇̼̰͇̺̹̼̳̟͡V̶̥͕̯̮̻̀̌͆̇̌̉̇͊̔ͣ̾̚͟Ȩ͉͙̱͈̦̿̀̂ͥ̿̎ͤ͋ͨ͆ͧ̀ͨ̒̓̅ͥ̀͟͡

 

\----

 

You remember everything you did, this time.

You think.

It’s like a fog lifting, or-- a curtain. 

Something dark, and heavy. 

You called and something came. Maybe it’d always been there. You can still feel it cloying inside of you, that darkness. Hadn’t nobody been better? Why had you gone back? 

(For power. What a stupid question. You were just too weak to use it.) 

(...No, that’s not right.)

Kinomiya holds out his hand to you and you don’t understand. Max, Rei, the Professor-- 

You don’t understand. You _can’t_ understand. 

Nobody comes when you call. Nobody has ever come for you. 

You want to understand. 

You grab his hand and blink back tears. 

\----

Everything seems so clear to you now, somehow. 

They’re stupid kids. But. 

You’re a kid too. 

You’re just a kid. 

\----

You feel exhausted but you tell them the truth, because they deserve to know. You talk about the monastery, about what really went on there. You even-- with a push from Daitenji-- tell them why you were there. Who put you there.

You don’t think you can understand the pain on Kinomiya’s face. Maybe someday. All you can think about is that you want him to grab your hand again while you’re talking. That’s stupid, though, so you don’t ask. 

You do promise them you’ll be there when they battle in the finals, though. 

Where would they be without you, anyway? 

Someone has to be there when they call.

\----

who the fuck were you kidding

you can’t be there for them

you can’t be there for anyone

\----

You laugh when your grandfather offers you help because he’s never come for that once in your life, but you can’t laugh at what he says afterwards. 

Because-- it’s true, isn’t it? Even now, the thought of losing haunts you. 

Maybe that hunger for power is in your blood. 

… Still, you… 

\----

“I want to be able to make him feel even a little bit better,” Kinomiya says. 

You take a deep breath. 

\---- 

You can’t be there for them right now but you’re also not going to betray them, either. 

You’re done being a tool. 

You’ve been one for so long. 

\----

Somehow, you feel like you always knew it’d come down to Kinomiya. 

That doesn’t mean you expected him to be fully isolated for his last battle. 

You feel the pit of despair in your stomach at the scenery surrounding him. If he calls for help, no one will come. It’s--

There’s nothing surprising about someone from the Borg using that loneliness against someone else, yet you still didn’t expect it. Had you thought yourself alone? Did you feel your pain was _special_? 

You could’ve warned him. 

Your worry is for naught, though. He says it loud and clear:

“I’m never alone.”

You laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

\----

So you save the world. You win the championships. You defeat your grandfather. You disband the Borg. You challenge Kinomiya to a battle in a fit of excitement and don’t even care when everyone else bandwagons your idea. 

It can wait, can’t it? You’re done. It’s over. You won. 

\----

the problem is you have to go home eventually

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon of season 1, Kai is always helping out Team BBA in battles and out of it. He then also immediately denies doing it because he cares about them or something. As much as I joke that he's just tsundere, there's also this scene in Europe where he loses his shit when Takao helps him. The team writes it off as him not knowing how to say thank you. 
> 
> I went darker.
> 
> Part 2 will cover season 2 and have more... "out there" headcanons so feel free to let this stand alone. It works great on its own.


	2. home's a place that i have never known

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i don't care about what all the others say, though i guess there are some things that will just never go away  
> i wish that i could see that there's no better place than home  
> but home's a place that i have never known

Home is a funny concept. 

You’d never thought about it much before. Home had just been wherever you’d ended up. Whether that was a monastery or a mansion or a warehouse, with strangers or goons or with your grandfather…it was all the same to you. Home was just the place where you were currently living. Back then, that was all it needed to be.

You’re plagued by your feelings over so many things these days, it’s easy to find yourself missing when times were simpler. When the extent of things you allowed yourself to care about was power and how to obtain it. When home was a place you were staying at, and that’s all it ever needed to be. 

So… yeah, you find yourself missing that, sometimes. You probably shouldn’t. You certainly don’t _want_ to... but you do. 

Part of the reason behind that is that, now, when you think of home, you’re left coming up empty.

Hm. Maybe funny isn't the right word. 

Depressing, more like.

\-------

When Daitenji brings up the subject of exactly what might happen to you now that your grandfather is being sent to trial, you just sort of… shrug at him. Honestly, you hadn’t given any thought to what might happen after bringing him down. (You will later learn that your inability to consider things in any kind of long-term capacity is something of a recurring problem.)

He asks if you have any family. Or just anyone who could “take care of you”, since one doesn’t exactly preclude the other in your case. You just shrug again. As far as you know, you don’t. He seems worried and tells you that he’ll make sure to find out, that he’ll do anything in his power to help you with all the legal details of your situation. You can’t really bring yourself to care much about it all. Whatever happens to you after this is far off and unimportant. Right now, you’re happy. 

Right now, you’re free.

\-------

Your father is alive, the chairman tells you not too long after that conversation. You’ve barely been back in Japan for a day when he drops that bomb on you. He is alive, he tells you, and you’ve apparently been in his custody this whole time. Surprise!

It turns out you hate surprises.

The chairman doesn’t seem to expect your sudden and rather vehement denial. Most likely because the fact is, you don’t argue with adults. You disagree--you reject--you might even disrespect-- but you don’t argue. Not like this. (You’d learned to be a little shit with trust issues and little respect for authority; you’d also learned how to not let that get you _killed_.) This is a subject you find yourself reflexively balking at, though. 

You tell him the papers are lying. That it’s just a sick joke. You don’t have a father. You don’t even remember ever having met the man, you say. It’s just… impossible. You don't know why you're even having this conversation.

The chairman is very careful when he tells you that everyone has parents, like that’s not something you know. You’re not _stupid_. You must’ve had parents at one point, but now? You can’t possibly have any. It’s bullshit. He asks you why you’re so sure and you stop talking suddenly. Isn’t it obvious? You want to scream at him. You can’t. Your voice is caught in your throat and you just end up making a disparaging noise at him. Because, you start. You stop. It doesn’t _matter_. You tell the chairman to prove it to you and maybe then you’ll consider it, but until he has irrefutable proof-- until he can find the man that’s supposed to be your father and make you see him with your own eyes-- you refuse to acknowledge such a ridiculous notion. 

The chairman assures you he’ll find him and you still don’t scream at him when you tell him, voice low, that you don’t care if he does. Whatever he finds won’t be your father. 

Daitenji only looks sad.

\-------

How could he not get it? 

Nobody had ever come for you before. If you really had a father, if he really was alive… 

It means your grandfather might’ve put you in that place, but your father never took you out. He hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t wanted _you_. 

You don’t need to add parental abandonment alongside everything else. Obviously. You think of Kinomiya’s distance with his dad, of Max clinging desperately to his mom, and--

You really don’t need that.

(If your grandfather had taught you anything of value, it’s that family’s not all that important in the grand scheme of things. Blood relations are overrated.

You cling to that.)

\------

When you next see him, Daitenji tells you he found your “father” and that you need to see him to understand. That you have to go to him to _get it_. You’re fairly sure there’s nothing to get. He’s just one more person who hadn’t cared about you. Big deal. You’d spent your whole life surrounded by people like that before your team was formed. 

Still, he insists, and you can’t exactly hide away in your temporary housing provided by the BBA with its chairman literally hounding you at its door. So: you agree.

You get the feeling you’re going to regret doing it for a long time, though.

\-----

Your father is living in a mansion far enough from your grandfather’s that you would’ve never accidentally come across it on your own, yet somehow close enough to be considered in the same prefecture. It does absolutely nothing to calm your nerves. Daitenji notices your reluctance to step out of the car and waits with you without saying anything. You feel more humiliated than grateful and it’s enough to push you to get out of it, slamming the door behind you. 

You think, petulant and glaring at the ground, that you want to go home before remembering that there is no home for you to go to right now. That, if you’re being honest with yourself, there never has been. (You think fleetingly of your teammates before dismissing the thought with haste.)

You cross your arms tight against your chest, holding them there as you continue to glare at nothing. What are you so scared of, anyway? You’ve been through so much worse. Something like this definitely shouldn’t even be affecting you. You need to get your shit together. 

In the end, it’s you who rings the doorbell.

(You’re always making shitty choices like that.)

\------ 

The butler who opens the door (because _of course_ ) greets you warmly, and you stare blankly back at him so long Daitenji begins to sweat next to you. Good. He’s the one making you go through this, after all. He _should_ be nervous. Unfortunately, the butler is unaffected. He only chuckles before admitting that you probably don’t remember meeting him, as it’s been nearly a decade… 

You tune him out. You’ve had enough of your past dumped on you recently to know you’re better off not hearing this. You stride into the mansion uninvited (pointedly ignoring the amused comment about you not having changed that much and the laughter that follows), looking around without any real interest. It’s surprisingly bare, for a mansion. Most of the rooms you pass by are completely empty, in fact. The ones that aren’t have sparse furniture covered in blankets and bland decorations. So far, everything in this mansion lacks any personal touches. 

Wow. You feel at home already.

The butler and the chairman catch up to you, and the butler heads you off into a sitting room that seems to actually be in use, gesturing to couches surrounding a table in such a way that you just _know_ you’re about to be served tea and snacks. You look out the window in the room and consider jumping out. Instead, you sit on the far end of the furthest couch, your legs and arms crossed to stave off both the temptation to leave and your building annoyance. Daitenji sits on the same one as you, like he’s on your _side_ , as the butler excuses himself to get tea. You scooch a bit further away from the chairman in silent protest of the entire situation. This is not a tea moment.

You don’t particularly care for the fact that you’re about to be outnumbered soon, so you decide to distract yourself from that by looking around to see if there’s anything of interest in this room. At first glance, there’s nothing extraordinary. There’s a fireplace with pictures you can’t quite make out on the mantle, a bookcase filled with books that all seem to turn around the _riveting_ subject of business, a painting of waves on the wall and… 

There. On a small table in the corner, next to a framed picture, is a beyblade. You stand up, transfixed, and walk up to it. You can distantly hear the chairman ask you what’s wrong, but you don’t answer. You can’t answer. You tell yourself you’re just curious even as you’re picking it up, yet you don’t recognize the feeling building inside of you. It’s similar to how you felt in the monastery, and completely different at the same time. You don’t understand. You turn the top around in your hand, staring at it. It’s old, with obvious signs of wear from battles. It takes you a while to recognize the model of such an old version of bey, even though it’s a basic one, with no modifications. It’s the kind of bey a child… the kind a kid… 

You look at the picture abruptly. There’s a couple on it, a man and a woman, holding onto each other with sickening but genuine grins on their faces. The woman is holding up a toddler, who’s looking at the camera with an annoyed expression on his face. He’s holding the same beyblade you have in your hand close to himself. Your breath stops.

...It’s you. 

Your hand starts to sting and you realize abruptly that you’ve been squeezing the top hard enough to break it. You put it back down in a haste uncharacteristic of you, and the noise it makes shocks you with how loud it is. You look away from the table. Your heart is pounding, your head hurts, your eyes sting. You don’t understand what’s happening to you. By now, Daitenji has risen up by and is about a foot away from you, repeatedly calling your name in concern. You look away immediately, only to see the butler blocking the doorway, holding trays and staring. Your breath is coming out of you in something close to gasps. You can’t breathe. You can’t _think_. This room is too small. They’re staring at you and you want to tell them to stop, but your blood is rushing to your head and you can’t take the picture out of your mind. That stupid picture. The man, and the woman, and the child--and you-- you, and your-- your parents. You and your parents. Your mother (because who else would that be?) had been wearing a scarf, and even though you know it’s not the same or even remotely similar, you suddenly can’t bear wearing yours. It’s too heavy, it’s _choking_ you, and you scramble to take it off and throw it aside even as you take stuttering steps away from the adults. You can’t _fucking_ breathe. You can’t

you can’t

you can’t do this. you can’t be here. you can’t do this you don’t want to you DON’T WANT TO BE--

No, you think, harshly, you can’t do _this_. You close your eyes and try to concentrate on breathing again. In and out. In. And. Out. It’s just like those nights, back in… No. That’s not helpful. Just breathe. Breathe, and think about what you were doing. What _were_ you doing? Panicking? You don’t do that. You’re not a scared kid. They made sure of that. That last thought is like a switch to a hard stop on your feelings, and your head finally starts to clear. You can feel your hands stop to shake as you keep the steady rhythm of your breaths. You don’t know when you started shaking, but you don’t care. You think back: the Borg made sure you wouldn’t be a scared child. Scared children had no place as soldiers. Your grandfather had definitely agreed with that notion. Just thinking about all of that makes the picture of the happy couple take on a better, more familiar feeling to you. That’s right. Whatever you were feeling before, whatever caused that reaction out of you, it’s gone.

All you’re left with is anger. That’s fine. You know anger. You can deal with anger. 

When you finally open your eyes again your face is an impassive mask once more. You ignore the chairman and turn to the butler. You can tell from the look on his face that your glare is unexpected. Good. 

“I want to see my father,” you tell him, voice low. Once you see that man, it’s over. You can tell him exactly where he can shove his custody and you’ll be done. You refuse to play this game of house any longer. You can leave this place. 

The butler looks sad when he asks you to follow him. Maybe he knows what’s coming, you think.

\-------

_You_ hadn’t known what was coming. At all. 

You… you don’t know what you were expecting. 

Not this, at least.

\-------

The time you’d spent in the same room as your father was mercifully short. Though it’s still hard to reconcile what you’d just seen with how you’d felt about the entire concept of a father up until then. The man in that room was, without a doubt, the same man as the one in the family picture that had caused you such... discomfort. At the same time, he was completely unidentifiable. His glassy eyes had tracked your movements without any hint of life in them, and the butler had moved closer to wipe the drool pooling freely from his mouth. You didn’t understand. No, you couldn’t understand. 

They’d sat you down opposite that man and explained everything even as he sat there, unresponsive. You’d been unable to look him in the eyes. Unable to look at him at all, if you were honest.

Your father, you’d learned, had been in an accident with your mother. It had killed her and left him in a coma, and when he awoke, he’d been like… this. Awake, but unaware. Your grandfather had pulled enough strings and thrown enough money around that no one had been made aware of the truth of his state. The details of it were left vague so as not to upset you, but you can guess most of his methods were less than legal. You know your grandfather. What that meant for you was that at the time, legally, nothing had changed for you, even as you switched hands to your grandfather’s custody. He’d enlisted you in the monastery and gave the excuse of boarding school to the few who’d asked. He’d given the butler and your father regular updates on your wellbeing, assuring them (him, really, as your father wouldn’t have understood any of it, though you hadn’t voiced that particular thought) that you were _fine_. You think you must’ve given a little snort at that, because the butler had looked apologetic, saying that if he’d ever known, he’d… You’d gestured at him to just get on with it. Like you needed his fake pity. You’d turned out better than most. The butler had apparently asked if you’d wished to visit your father numerous times through the years and been rebuked with a no every time; some spiel about how it was too _hard_ on you. (You’re not sure how much of that excuse was to hide the fact you’d been sent to become a child soldier and how much of it was to cover for your stubborn bout of amnesia following that stint in the monastery.) But, the man assured you, he’d made sure your father caught every single one of your matches once he heard you were going to be playing internationally. You’d felt no comfort at this, and it must’ve shown on your face, because he was quick to go back to apologizing, telling you not to judge your father. He’d simply not been aware for so long… 

You hadn’t known what to say, and so you hadn’t said anything. You’d simply kept avoiding making eye contact with your father again. You didn’t think you’d know how to respond. 

Daitenji had then spoken up for the first time since you’d been brought to this room, telling you that you had a choice. You could either go with him to the proper authorities to get this... legal mishap (you’d rolled your eyes at the wording) fixed, ridding your father of any of his rights to you and leaving you in the precarious position of having no legal guardian to speak of. (He hadn’t said that part, but you’d inferred.) _Or_... you could stay there. With your father. The butler had agreed to take care of you if you wished to take that option, though some limitations would obviously be in place. You’d tuned out the details at that point. You’d gotten the gist of it.

And now you’re back at the BBA. Daitenji’d given you a few days to make your choice before leaving you alone. You don’t know if you’re grateful or resentful for it. You wouldn’t have wanted his company had he offered it, but...

You’re sitting on your bed, staring at the picture of your family the butler had given you before you left. (You’d said “no thanks”, he’d insisted, then seemed to reconsider and added “unless it makes you uncomfortable--”, and he hadn’t finished _that_ sentence that you’d snatched it out of his hands and left. You hate yourself, sometimes.) Your father, as far as you can tell, is a shell of the man he is in this picture. The man there looks healthy, full of joy and … life. You don’t know if you can say the one you saw in that room was even alive. 

You nearly flinch at the thought and look away from the happy family, something like guilt caught in your throat. People in that… state... have the possibility of recovery, you’d been told. You’re pretty sure the possibility was diminished the more time they spent like that. You hadn’t said that. 

You don’t know what to do.

The truth is, you’re not sure you could stand living in that house with that man, in that depressive atmosphere. ...You’re also not sure what will happen to you if you _don’t_ go there. You know you’re too young to be emancipated, and you have no idea what the system is like for regular kids, never mind technical heirs to a company that’s under a lot of fire lately. Where would you go? Who would you go with? What would _happen_ to you? You literally have no idea.

At least with your father you know what to expect. Where you’d be and … what you’d do. 

(They’d talked about giving you a normal life. You can’t even begin to pretend to know what that entails.) 

You look at the picture again. You’d grabbed your scarf before leaving, but you still haven’t put it back on. It looks nothing at all like the one your mother is wearing. You can’t rationalize why you still feel weird wearing anything similar to what she is in that picture. Is it because she sort of looks like you? Your father looks more like your grandfather than he does you. You… You, yourself, in that picture… It’s hard to believe it’s really you. 

Even with a pouting face, you look happy.

You let yourself flop backwards and stare at the ceiling, the picture still clutched in your fist. 

You don’t know what to do. 

… you think you know what you’ll pick regardless.

\-------

Your reasoning is sound. It’s the better option. It’s simpler, it’s safer, it leaves you with more freedom... it’s just overall the only choice you can possibly pick.

The weight in your stomach feels like lead when you bring your things over to your father’s mansion.

\----

You don’t give anyone your number outside of the chairman. You don’t even tell any of them where you’re going. From their point of view, you just sort of… vanish. Everyone’s busy with their own lives, they don’t need to be bothered with your petty worries.

You don’t know what you could tell them, anyway. 

You don’t even know what to tell yourself.

\-------

After a long, drawn out discussion about your schooling (to paraphrase: “What school did you go to?” “What the fuck is a school.”), the decision is made that you’ll be sent to a private boarding school as soon as possible. Partly to get the best possible education for you money can buy, and partly, you assume, because the butler is already pretty spent taking care of your father 24/7 without having to keep track of what you’re up to at all times. You assume that because you also assume he’s probably heard some stories from the staff back in your grandfather’s manor about exactly how little anyone knew what you were doing at any point in time. So long as you listened to him when he called and continued to search for holy beasts, that man hadn’t cared much what you did, and from what you can recall of your time in the Borg, you’d also been granted more freedom there than most of the kids. ...That or you just hadn’t given a shit about the consequences. Both are valid options. 

The point is, you do understand why you’re being sent to boarding school. That doesn’t mean you agree or appreciate it. The butler attempts to placate your obvious annoyance by telling you that you’ll be brought home from time to time, so that you can see your father. 

You are the opposite of appeased by this. You decide to stop talking to the butler.

\-------

...You should probably consider learning the butler’s name at some point, except it’s a bit late to ask and you’d rather not admit you hadn’t been listening the first time he told you.

It’s not like you talk to him much, anyway. 

\-------

Should your dad not have a nurse or something? Why is it only a butler?? Why does he do everything, _including_ driving you around??? Is there anyone else????

You take all those questions and put them in a mental box labelled “things you will never ask, ever”, alongside the butler’s name.

You’ve learnt lately that there are some things you’re better off not questioning.

\-------

You show up at the start of the school year alongside a bunch of other transfers or new kids, not really expecting to be noticed. You are, if you're honest, even kind of hoping for it, seeing as how you still don’t care for most people. So you’re more than a bit annoyed when it turns out that every single kid here had watched the world tournament and thus knew immediately who you were. You’re also quite baffled by it, considering you’d spent most of your time in the tournaments sidelining yourself. You’d clearly underestimated the national pride these kids would find in your team’s constant victories, or something.

Because of that, you end up spending most of your time the first week rejecting challenges and refusing to interact with anyone. None of which is outside the realm of your natural behavior, but the boarding school setting makes it harder than usual to pull off. You end up having to hide away in your dorm room during the off hours, only coming out late at night when everyone is asleep to walk around the school grounds in peace. You can’t keep that up forever, though. You’re already starting to get restless. 

This might be a problem. You need to find a way to make yourself seem less approachable, somehow. 

You miss your face paint.

\-------

You’re brought back to your father’s home that first weekend. You’re told it won’t happen again for some time, so you decide to scour the house for something to help you waste time at school, or at least some sort of deterrent to the other students’ constant attempts at talking to you. You don’t expect to find anything, so your search is half-hearted until you find an old cassette player and some tapes in a box in one room. The room itself, you find, is filled with other such junk technology. You have the fleeting thought that it’d make the Professor cry, both from how outdated it all is and how neglected it’s been. Everything is so dusty, you’re not even sure if what you just got will even work. Still, the discovery spurs you on to try to explore more of this place. 

There’s pictures of you at various stages of your life scattered throughout the mansion. As if you’d lived here your whole life, rather than… Well. You ignore those. It’s just you.

You realize fairly early on into your search that most of the rooms are separated by categories. This piques your interest enough that you end up spending hours in each room, unboxing and boxing items from your parents’ life before the accident. You’re not even thinking of them as you do it, though. You’re not thinking of yourself at all. Instead, you find yourself trying to imagine what your friends would say about everything you’re finding. 

You think that Kinomiya would like those old comic books, that Max would exclaim over every little thing like it’s the best find in the world, that the Professor would be fascinated by the variety of trinkets from all around the world, that Rei would probably be interested in this text of old myths, that… that…

You end up falling asleep in one of the rooms. The butler is the one who finds you and wakes you up, looking confused and displeased that you’ve apparently just taken to nap on the floor. (At least, you think it was a nap. You don’t know how long you spent just exploring or how long you just spent sleeping. Your sleep schedule’s been messed up since you got back to Japan.) You learn that he’d left you to your own devices all weekend, because he tells you that he came to fetch you so you could get ready to go back to school before classes start back tomorrow morning. He leaves you in the room with a comment about how you should say goodbye to your father before you go. You’re frowning at his exit and decide to figure out where, exactly, you’d fallen asleep, instead of acknowledging the fact that you are definitely not going to do that, at all, ever. You sit up and take a look around you.

Underneath the tarp and boxes left half-strewn about, it's easily apparent that this is a child’s room. There are boxes of various toys everywhere, awful drawings on the wall and a small bed you’d completely ignored in favor of the much more sensible carpeted floor. It doesn’t take you too long after that to understand that this was _your_ room. Your throat feels dry, all of a sudden.

You no longer feel like exploring. You need to pack, anyway, you tell yourself. You pat your pockets to make sure the cassette player is still there, grab the box of tapes and leave everything else as you go.

You’ve wasted enough time already. There’s nothing more for you here.

\-------

That first night back at school, you walk aimlessly through the halls until you catch sight of yourself in the windows. You do a double-take, caught off-guard by it. 

It doesn’t look like you. 

Maybe it’s the lack of face paint, you think to yourself. It _is_ hard to recognize your own face without it, and the standard pajamas the school provides you with just ended up adding to it, making you mistake yourself for one of the other kids. That’s gotta be it. Maybe all you need is something to distinguish yourself again. Yes.

… a distinguishable feature… 

\-------

It’s four in the morning. Your judgment is probably impaired and making this seem like a better idea than it is. Even as you think this, you don’t really care. You want to do this, and you’ve never been stopped from doing whatever you wanted before by anyone, not even your own better judgment. 

You hold the lighter underneath the tip of the needle for what you assume is a long enough time and then stick it straight through your ear.

You don’t even flinch. You’ve hurt yourself worse beyblading, so it’s fine. Except for the bloody mess you make in your wake, since you’d forgotten to consider that detail. It turns out ears bleed a lot more than you thought they would.

… You are kind of glad you don’t have a roommate to see this. Small favors.

\-------

You leave school grounds illegally during class and go buy an earring. You feel a little bit better. You’re not sure if it’s the earring or the rebellious actions… But honestly, you don’t care.

\-------

Life after that falls into a pattern. Either you’re at school, where you don’t talk to anyone and sleep through most of your classes, or, more rarely, you’re at home and you’re _also_ not really talking to anyone there. You’re not that vocal of a person in the first place, though, so it’s not that big of a deal.

Your spare time is mostly spent exploring the mansion or the city, depending on where you are. You’re technically not allowed to leave the school grounds, but no one has caught you sneaking out yet. Besides, you don’t really have anything else to do since you’re not blading anymore. 

When you’d realized that you’d just sort of _stopped_ blading--not only against other people, but training too… You thought you’d feel worse about it than you do. You’ve never not trained before. You guess you’re not as affected as you’d expected because there’s no opponent worth fighting anymore? After all, the only real match you can bring yourself to want is against… 

Kinomiya’s not here, anyway. It’ll never happen. So… what’s the point? 

\-------

Right after the world finals, you’d taken a picture with your friends for the BBA and the news. Your team is smiling in it, every single one of them. Even you. 

You keep a copy of it with you. You stare at it, sometimes, and try to capture that moment again in your heart. How you’d felt. You never quite manage it. 

It makes you feel better, but you still can’t bring yourself to smile like you did then. 

\-------

You find out your family owns some of the housing buildings not too far from your school and decide to set up a private place for yourself there. You think you’ll make it feel personal. 

…

So, really, you just put in a whole lot of beyblade paraphernalia. The trophies you’d won participating in the world tournament, some old models of beys, launchers, even a stadium. You add that picture of your team after a lot of waffling, and it takes even longer for you to put Dranzer behind glass. It feels like a betrayal, but it's better for you to put it in a safe place, right? You look at the whole picture of the place once you're done with a feeling you can't identify. Beyblade and your friends… That's as personal as you get, isn’t it? 

In the end, you mostly go there to nap on the couch. It cuts down on the time you spend sleeping in class a bit. You pretend it counts as progress.

\-------

Progress for what, anyway?

You don’t know.

\-------

You start sneaking out from the mansion, too, the few times you’re there. Everything you could explore you’ve pretty much done the first weekend you’d been brought back, and speaking to your father is out of the question. Even simply considering it makes you uncomfortable, you assume because of the whole… vegetable status. 

There’s probably a better, less callous term for that. You don’t care. 

Your only solution, then, is to start taking walks in the areas near enough to the mansion so that you can get back without anyone noticing you’d left. Before you’d been sent off to school, you’d spent some time testing out how long you could stay outside in increments. The answer to that question was frankly far longer than you’d expected; the butler had gotten so used to routine with your father that he’d only ever start seeking you out at specific times during the day, meaning that appearing and disappearing in any of the hours between those was completely consequence free. Not that there’d been much consequences to your misbehaviors before, but you’d still rather avoid any unnecessary confrontations. 

You’d never spent much time just exploring around without purpose before, too busy training or... technically running a gang, but you think you might like it. As much as you’ve ever liked anything that didn’t have to do with beyblade or holy beasts, anyway. Whether you’re near your father’s house or outside the school grounds, you find yourself attracted to the greener spaces around when you’re not in your “secret place”. You even nap in a bush or a tree, once or twice. (You’re always tired, these days, yet you can never seem to sleep long at night. It’s probably your shitty sleep schedule keeping you awake. That, and… your brain won’t seem to shut up, in the dark. Either way, you’ve only got yourself to blame.) 

These green areas also tend to house the least amount of people, which you count as a bonus. That in no way makes them lifeless, though. You don’t think you’ve ever noticed how many stray and wild animals there were around before. There’s a strange, almost _yearning_ feeling in your chest every time you spot one. You have no real clue why. You’re also unsure how to act around animals, anyway. You’ve never owned an one. If you’re being realistic, you barely know how to deal with human beings, so it's probably better for you to steer clear of other living things, too.

Still, you… 

Your time outside ends up being a lot of time spent sitting and watching the wildlife, curled in on yourself to make sure you don’t scare them off. You’re pretty sure if you make any sort of movement towards them, you’ll just ruin it. It makes you a bit anxious to think about, so you stick to watching. Your constant quiet and unmoving presence pays off when you spot what you assume is a mother cat in the process of moving her kittens, one by one, via the scruff of their neck. She hides them in a bush a bit further away from you, keeping a wary eye on you every time you breathe too loud. She’d come close to you a few times before, though, almost close enough to touch, so she must think you’re trustworthy. (Or the animal equivalent. Not a threat? Isn’t that the same thing?) The kittens meow loudly when she leaves to fetch each one, but stay put. You get a strange urge to hide your face in your knees for no particular reason. You follow through on it. You feel warm and kinda tingly. You don’t… really know why you’re doing this or feeling this way. Still, you find yourself peeking up at the cats again. 

They’re… awfully cute, aren’t they? 

The thought makes that warm tingly feeling grow in your stomach. It feels sort of like the softer cousin of humiliation. Kinda like that feeling you used to get when your teammates would tease you. It’s… nice, you guess? It doesn’t feel _bad_ , anyway. 

You think you might kind of like animals, maybe.

\-------

It’s not all free time and kittens, though. 

The first time a guy in a cloak challenges you to a battle, you’re not even paying attention to his appearance as you shoot him down. You’ve never been interested in random challenges, and it’s only become truer with your current disinterest in blading. Besides, you don’t have Dranzer on you anymore. Once he leaves, you’re quick to write him off your mind completely. 

The second time he challenges you, you don’t even recognize him as the same guy. Oops.

By the seventh time, he’s taken off his cloak. At this point, you’ve become fully aware of both his persistence and his far more worrying _constant stalking_. You don’t know how to say you’re not interested any more clearly. It’s starting to be quite aggravating. 

Still, it’s probably nothing important. You try to pretend you care about schoolwork and write him off continuously. 

(You might later regret this, but what’s one more regret to you?)

\-------

You’d spent the weekend home with annoyance and reluctance, so you’re glad to be heading back, no matter the dreary weather. The butler seems to sense this and decides to finally address your treatment of your father during the car ride. The second he talks about wishing you’d treat him with kindness, you open the window to try to drown out his voice with the sound of wind and rain. It doesn’t work. You are forced to listen to him and can’t even use your favorite method of escapism; walking away from the conversation. You don’t answer (answer as you still don’t argue with adults, seeing as it’s a total _waste of time_ ) because you’ve got nothing to say. You’re not a kind person in the first place, so you’re not sure what he expected. You continue your attempts to tune him out, though they fail you and you distinctly hear it when he calls you cruel for never speaking a word at home. You hadn’t thought he’d noticed, yet more than that... You’re annoyed. 

You’ve seen cruel. You’ve _been_ cruel. Refusing to talk to a man that won’t notice a difference isn’t _cruel_. He has no idea what he’s talking about. You stew in your resentment for the rest of the ride. Once you finally arrive, you barely wait until the car is pulled over to walk out of it, ignoring both the rain and the butler’s distressed cries. Who does he even think he is? You don’t even know his fucking name, still. 

Once you’re inside, some kid you don’t know suddenly runs over to you. You’re not sure if he’s new or if you’ve never noticed him before, but his speech is so similar to ones you’ve heard from everyone else that you can’t bring yourself to give a shit. You end up walking away without having to say anything at all, which is nice. As you head off to your dorm room, you start to idly wonder how long you can spend without talking to anyone at all. (You’ve gotten even better at staying silent since the world championships. You don’t spend a lot of time considering the implications of that.)

The thought of not speaking to anyone for an extended period of time makes you feel a little bit better, somehow.

\-------

You don’t get away with your half-assed plan, though, because the kid finds you haunting the school hallways in the middle of that same night. 

(You’re not a ghost but you feel like one enough these days to call it haunting. It is only slightly melodramatic.)

Everything that comes out of his mouth is basically white noise to you, though you do catch him giving his name in there. Yuuya, huh. Your enthusiasm for this conversation stays at zero. In response, you tell him to stop following you. Seriously, at this point, you are collecting stalkers faster than you ever collected… You don’t get to finish that thought before you’re attacked by a stray projectile, and you tackle the kid to safety.

When did you start reflexively saving other people, anyway? You should probably stop doing that. 

You don’t have time to ponder your own intricacies right now, though. Other people are showing up at the commotion, but you’re the only one who catches the glimpse of your attacker in the broken window as he catches his bey. Think of your stalker collection and the most persistent one just shows up, huh? Convenient. 

You’re leaping off after him through it before thinking things through. There’s several reasons why this isn’t a good plan: you’ve sealed off your beyblade, he’s got enough height and muscle mass on you that an actual physical altercation is, at best, misguided, jumping through a recently broken window is just asking to get your exposed body parts skewered, and, most damningly, your classmates and teacher(s? you didn’t exactly check) can’t be that far behind you. Whatever it is you want to do here, you don’t have much time. And the fact is-- you don't even know what that is. You’re just blindly rushing off into the forest for no reason, all gut reflex and no brain. Good job, Kai.

It’s only when you lose him in the darkness that you recognize the feeling driving you towards this intense recklessness. You… you’re angry, aren’t you? You’ve never felt that kind of anger at being attacked before. Why are you so angry now? 

You remind yourself that now is not the time for self-examination just as the guy shows up again. You're angry, but the knowledge that you are is enough to keep it contained. No more rushing into things. You’re unmoved when he starts spouting shit about fighting you, and you wonder how many times you’re going to have to tell him to get lost before he gets the hint. 

You do just that, and he answers you by launching his beyblade straight at your face, which you barely dodge... only to have a tree fall on you. 

Okay. Rude. 

You can’t say that that’s the first time that’s happened to you, though, so the initial shock fades pretty fast once you're in the clear. Then suddenly Yuuya’s there, too, apparently having watched the whole thing. Did he jump through the window after you? If so, the kid’s got more guts than you thought. …He's more foolish, too, but that mix of courage and idiocy resonates in you for some reason. 

You hear footsteps in the distance before you can acknowledge him verbally and that’s the exact moment you realize exactly how little you feel like explaining this entire fiasco to everyone at school. Or anyone at all, _ever_ , really. You bark at your attacker to leave, and he seems to want to deal with other people knowing his presence about as much as you do, because he actually listens to you. Just in time, too, as your other classmates and teacher show up right then, bombarding you with questions. Huh. That’s as relieving as it is confusing. 

…

You decide to not answer any of the questions directed at you and just walk away. That also works, for some reason. No one stops you.

Welp.

That happened.

\-------

You don’t sleep the rest of the night, a mix of leftover adrenaline and your apparently endless quest to fuck up your sleep schedule combined, but you more than make up for it in class. You then spend all of your lunch break in the room the students have rededicated to practice beyblading in, listening to your music on a low enough volume that you can still hear the whirring of the tops. It’s a bit weird, but hearing that bey attack you yesterday… It made you sort of nostalgic. (That probably says more about you than you care to think about.)

You decide to further indulge your (not at all messed up) nostalgia and sneak off to your “secret place” after school. You haven’t been there in a while, and there's a sort of guilt lingering in you for neglecting Dranzer so long… It’s as good an excuse as any.

You get about a block away before you get the feeling you’re being followed. 

Again.

This is really starting to be a problem. Luckily, a quick glance in a car’s side mirror is enough to inform you that it’s just the new kid. He’d told you his name yesterday, hadn’t he? Yuuya, right. You wonder what he wants right now. He seems to be trying to follow you without being caught, though he’s really awful at it. It’s almost... endearing. Reminds you of-- well. You decide to not dwell on that thought and just let him follow to see what he wants. It’s not like you’ve got anything to hide from the kid in there, or anyone else for that matter; as much as you like to call it your secret place, it’s really just the world’s smallest beyblade museum if you’re honest with yourself. 

You do open the door in his face when he tries to listen in, because he’s gotta learn _somehow_. Some things are just plain rude.

\-------

You indulge in nostalgia with a stranger and get attacked _again_ , which is really all you deserve for waxing poetic about wanting to-- fight Kinomiya, of all things. ...Not that you hadn’t meant all of it, but there were some things that should really stay private. You like to consider those things being nearly every single thing about yourself. (You’d ask since when do you open up to people, but-- you know when.)

Anyway. You’d thrown Yuuya to safety (kids these days, unable to jump out of a window by themselves) _and_ managed to grab your blade and launcher before the entire place got trashed, so you count it as a victory on your part. A very annoyed victory. You’d _liked_ that picture. Of course, you could probably ask the chairman for another copy, but that would include asking the chairman for anything, a move you’ve worked very hard to avoid in all the time you’ve known the man. (Your trust in him might be marginally higher than your trust in most adults, but that’s obviously not saying much.)

After that fiasco, you’d decided you needed to put Dranzer in a safe place, since bringing it back to school was just asking for another attack. You need a place that’s safe, away from people, where no one can stumble upon it ...

...You end up settling for “next to a box underneath a bridge”. 

Your bey seems to stare at you accusingly until you cover it up.

Look. There's only so much you can do tonight. You have a kid to bring back to school before people notice you're both missing, and you don’t exactly make a habit of knowing all the sweet beyblade hiding spots in the city. You tell yourself that it’s temporary, that you'll find a better, more secure place tomorrow. Besides, you’ll be alone and not babysitting (another worrying pattern for you), which is a bonus. It’s enough to stave off your worries for now.

It's not like that much can happen in twenty four hours.

(You have used wilful denial a bit too often in your lifetime, that you can think something like _that_ with a straight face.)

\-------

All in all, it takes about eighteen hours for your decision on Dranzer’s placement to bite you in the ass, which is one of the longest turnabout for your great life choice skills yet. That fact completely fails to make you feel any better about the situation. Really, you don't know why you hadn’t expected Yuuya to rush in and do something stupid on your behalf, considering how much time you'd spent thinking he reminded you of your old team. Was it wishful thinking on your part? Or simple ignorance? Either way, it's your fault for not knowing better. Again. 

You know you should feel angry that the kid took your bey and accepted the challenge in your stead, and you _are_ , but all in all you’re more baffled than anything. Why Mr. Stalker thought challenging you via letter would work after everything else is a bit...

It turns out one of the constant of your life is that you're surrounded by fucking idiots. 

\-------

Your laughter following the battle against Dunga is nothing short of maniacal. Yuuya is concerned, but you can't stop yourself. That feeling, of meeting a strong opponent… You'd _missed_ it. It fills you up with an energy that leaves you shaking with more than just leftover adrenaline. You haven't felt this alive since your team had won the world championships. 

Fuck.

Why did you ever _stop_? 

\-------

You have to fight him again. You've never settled on a tie before, and you definitely don't want to start now. You have a good idea where to start your search, and that thought also fills you with an exhilaration that leaves you breathless. There's not an ounce of hesitation or second thought in you. You've got exactly one non-school uniform outfit with you here, so you switch into that, cram your bey and launcher into the first pack you find, and grab whatever money you'd brought with you. It's only a train ride away, and after that… who cares. 

You're getting out of here. 

\-------

...You paint your face, for good measure.

It feels good to be back.

\-------

(Maybe everything started when you’d first reached for that bey, back in the monastery. Maybe it’s leftover from the fact that you were a spoiled brat. Whatever it is, you’ve never been good at thinking of things in the long term, or consequences. If there’s something you want, you go for it.

Strength or weakness? It doesn’t matter. It’s just who you are.

Nothing good happens when you forget that.)

\-------

You come across Kinomiya mostly by accident. 

Sure, you’d known you’d eventually go meet him, but you expected it to be at… his house, or something. Wherever that is. (Okay, so you hadn’t planned out anything. That shouldn’t come as a surprise.) It’s the sounds of the battle that draw you to his location, though it’s his incompetence that makes you reveal yourself. 

You’d distinctly remembered how you'd gotten into the habit of helping them out during tournaments. Acknowledging that had been a bit of a personal hurdle to overcome, so it was kind of hard to forget. You had, however, completely forgotten that with that particular habit came a strong, knee-jerk feeling of _indignation_. It’s only exacerbated by the fact that _Kinomiya,_ of all people, is the one struggling. He’s stronger than this. You know for a fact that he's far better than whatever you're witnessing right now. Has he really lost his touch so much in the past few months since you last saw him? Something lurches in your guts at the thought. You assume it’s disappointment. You'd thought him to be your… the only opponent really worth fighting. Disappointment that it might not be the case anymore is normal.

(The lurching feeling in your gut stays even after Kinomiya wins with your advice. 

You ignore that for the far more familiar feeling of exasperation when you realize he's always been strongest with someone standing behind him to remind him of it. 

What a dweeb.)

\-------

Things you hadn’t accounted for in your haste to rush back straight into battle: 

everything.

A shorter list of things you hadn’t accounted for, containing your current main problem only: your social interaction skills have actually gone _down_ since the last time you’d been in this kind of situation. (The situation being, in this case, “in the same sphere of existence as with people you sort of care about, and also they know you care, because you’re a huge loser who had feelings all over them”. Only maybe phrased in a less bitter fashion.) Russia happened so fast that you hadn't gotten to interact as a “legitimate, not in denial about it” friend with anyone for long, and the truth is you have no idea how to keep that kind of interaction long term. You don't… do conversations. You don't really wanna learn how to, either. The thought kinda gives you hives.

On top of that, the presence of a stranger who's obviously friends with Kinomiya doesn't make you more likely to want to talk. At all. (Does she even blade? Why is she here?)

All that considered, you end up just… trailing off behind them, in silence, for the whole day.

This was stupid, right? You didn’t need to go see Kinomiya or any of the others at all. All you needed was to find your stalker, and… when did you start associating beyblading with other people, anyway? There’s no tournament, no team… it’s not like you even want their help or anything. (Hell no.) So why did you come here? 

Apparently for them to call you weird behind your back (which isn't completely wrong, but also: they know you can hear them, right?), get introduced to said friend of Kinomiya’s and then more or less kidnapped to go stay with him indefinitely. 

Um.

Um…

Um???????????

\-------

Could you have put up more of a fight? 

Yes.

... 

That’s it. That’s all you have to say for yourself. 

You could have put up more of a fight. You don’t know why you didn’t, what stopped you. He’d dragged you by the arm the entire way there, never once letting go. You’d… mostly stuttered out objections in shock.

What the fuck was that.

He’s so. He’s just. And you… you'd just...

Kinomiya is so annoying. Annoying, and stubborn, and loud, and clingy, and-- and--

You had forgotten. All of that.

Yeah. That’s all.

It had just… taken you by surprise.

\-------

You wake up with the sunrise. 

By “wake up”, you mean silently crawl out of your futon at the first sign of light outside, because you hadn’t slept for most of the night… as usual. Listening to Kinomiya snore and mumble his way through dreams had not in any way hindered your new amazing ability to never sleep when it was appropriate to do so. Unsurprisingly. It turns out you had not at all missed the sleepover part of hanging out with your friends. Or. Friend, singular, in this case? This is weird. You'd never done separate rooms in your travels, so being left one on one with Kinomiya is… weird. 

Or maybe it's just weird for you, because he'd settled in very...fast, you think as you stare at his clothes on the ground. 

You decide to think about anything other than that. Also to leave, right now, immediately. Right after you fold up the futon you’d been given. (You've had a modicum of manners instilled in you, you just usually don’t follow through on them. Being polite feels disingenuous to your personality.)

You figure a walk might help you clear your head and step out to do so, and that's how you nearly crash into Kinomiya’s grandfather. You take an abrupt step back and hit a wall. The man takes it in stride and laughs jovially at you, commending you on being awake so early and something about a swordsman spirit? You don’t answer. You’re not even sure if you’re meant to, or what you should even say. He’d done something similar yesterday, and you… 

Definitely don’t know how to feel about any of it. You interrupt the man mid-spiel with something about going to the beach and eclipse yourself as fast as you can.

(You consider briefly if death might be a more merciful end than enduring more Kinomiyas being. Themselves. For whatever extended period of time you’ll be around.

You write it off as too melodramatic, even for you.) 

\-------

The truth is you’ve never been a very vocal kid. Part of that’s just who you are naturally. You just don’t like noise. 

Another part of it, you know now, is learned. Nobody ever came for you, so why call out? You’d started to only speak when absolutely necessary and never bothered raising your voice outside of battle. The less you spoke, the more people strained to hear you no matter how softly you did it. It gave you a sense of authority. Of control. 

The few words you do speak aren’t usually nice, but you’re not a nice person. Cruelty can be taught, too, so you’ve got plenty of that. That means your comments usually range from brutally honest to disparaging. Anything that makes you sound complimentary or caring feels heavy and foreign on your tongue, so you’re always quick to dismiss it with remarks whose honesty range from extremely to not very to basically just lying to make yourself feel better.

...You’ve been trying to work on that. 

By now, you’ve gotten better about it with your teammates for the most part, if only because you _do_ genuinely like and care for them. It took you a long time to come to terms with it, but you’re able to admit it freely now. ...If only to yourself. But when it comes to Kinomiya, you feel like your mouth and your head just won’t cooperate. You want to say honest (weak, useless, stupid, unnecessary) things to him just as much as you want to constantly berate him so he has no idea how much he’s affecting you. Also, berate him in general, because he’s so-- ugh. All your teammates are, to varying levels, but Kinomiya... drives you crazy in more ways than one.

You feel oddly defensive around him when you’re left one-on-one, is the thing. So it’s unsurprising that, even though the other two are there and you’re still a bit offended at the conversation you overheard with the girl accusing you of being a traitor ( _so_ last year), when Kinomiya looks at you brimming with joy and hope, and asks you why you came back to him (him, specifically, and the thought makes your stomach jumps a bit for no reason), you find yourself telling him the honest truth that you’d missed him. 

He learns forward with a look you can’t even begin to describe and you look away as you add that what you meant was that you’d missed his stupidity. It’s technically not a lie. You did miss his specific brand of stupidity, a bit.

He does not appreciate the honesty. You still feel a bit better when he’s sulking instead of making such a--such a stupid face. 

\-------

You’d thought, at the time, that it was important for you to remind Kinomiya you didn’t want or need his help. And it’s true, even after the mess that’s been the previous year. You’re strong enough. That’s probably the only thing you’ve got going for you these days. The thing is…

Maybe part of you wouldn’t mind teaming up with them all again. Helping them out again. 

Is that hypocrisy? You don’t need them to come for you, and you’d still be annoyed if they thought you needed the help, but… You no longer mind the idea of being there for them. 

With something like this…

Isn’t it the least you can do for them, anyway?

\-------

Besides, you came back because you wanted to be challenged again. It’d be silly to refuse because you don’t want to be on a team with your friends.

…

Just thinking that made you want to die a little.

\-------

You want to say it’s nostalgic to have the “gang” all back together, but there’s a few problems with that. Like the fact that you can’t be nostalgic for something that used to be the norm a scant few months ago, for example. Not to mention if you start to feel nostalgic about the past of all things, you…

Well. The past is the past. That’s where it should stay.

(Sometimes you see bodies of water and have to look away, or spend a little too long staring out into the darkness and start expecting something to _stare back_ , and if that isn’t pathetic, you don’t know what is.)

The main problem with feeling any kind of… whatever at your reunion is that apparently you’re not the only one whose social skills have gone down the drain. Everything has this sense of … awkwardness about it. Growing pains, maybe. 

Even _you_ could tell Kinomiya was being unnecessarily harsh, is the thing. But it’s not like any of them really stopped him or disagreed. (Is it still “any of _them_ ”? You’re more part of the group than you ever were travelling around the world, but if they start looking to you for moral advice instead of beyblade advice, you have definitely done them a huge disfavor somewhere along the line. More than you already think you did, even.)

On top of that, mixing that social drama with everyone’s difficulty to harness the new technology at their disposal is… 

You step outside with a sigh and that’s when you see it.

\-------

You didn’t do it for her. You don’t like the new girl. Of course, you don’t exactly _dislike_ her either. You just don’t _know_ her.

That feeling in your chest is just because you’re proud of having mastered something new. That’s all there is to it. 

You are in no way ready to even try to make more friends. Or acquaintances. But you should at least try to get along with her if she’s going to be sticking with your team.

\-------

And then you got kidnapped on your way to an official match by… the people challenging you to said match. 

You look at the tracker on your arm and idly wonder what’s happening at your school. 

Maybe you should’ve stuck around.

(Like hell.)

\-------

Being kidnapped (you can’t believe this is your life) somehow ended up more of a babysitting journey for you, which you’re quite frankly fine with, since it looks like Kinomiya and the others got the raw end of that deal by how hurt and exhausted they look when you get back. 

(The journey in the helicopter with the chairman becomes a little bit awkward when you realize the man _probably_ knows that you skipped town on your “home”, but then you tell yourself he let you all get kidnapped, so, who cares?)

It’s weird how, even with everything happening around you, you feel less involved than ever. It’s like you’re on auto-pilot. You were kidnapped by people trying to steal your holy beast. Shouldn’t you care more? Were you this way last year? You don’t think you were. You can’t remember. Outside of some instinctual urge to protect your team you’re not looking into because it still makes you uncomfortable if you think about it too long, you’re… not impressed. Is that what this is? Not being interested because of the lack of strong opponents is a feeling you should recognize, though. That was a near-constant. 

But even fighting Dunga again doesn’t make that feeling go away fully.

You _know_ you were angrier last year. More passionate. If you’re honest with yourself, your blading is suffering because of it. You want that spark back, but you… You don’t know how to get it back. Not for real.

(Sometimes, lying awake in the dojo in the dark while the rest of them sleep on, you start wondering: Was the quest for Kuro Suzaku all that sustained you as a person? As a blader? 

Was your grandfather right after all? The want for power is in your blood. Let that go and… What’s left of you?)

\-------

You’re still better off here than you were back there. 

That’s the one thing you know.

Whether you care enough or not… that doesn’t matter.

All you can try to do is be there for them.

\-------

But then Yuuya shows up, and you turn him away, and he--

And he--

Oh, god.

\-------

Is it your fault? It has to be your fault, doesn’t it? Realistically. 

You know it’s useless, but in the days after you try to go over what you could’ve done to prevent it. It had seemed so sudden at the time. You know that isn’t true, now; it was just your actions, building up, over time. If you’d reacted quicker. If you’d done things differently. Just… anything.

You’ve told yourself so many times that you never want to save anyone, but if you’re honest maybe that’s always been a little bit of a lie. Because you’d listened to the screams of the other kids as a child and part of you had wanted to stop them. You’d tried so hard to squash that part of you. You’d fancied yourself as strong and independent, that helping others was just keeping them weak and there was no point. That everyone should be out for themselves. … Yet every time you’d helped out your teammates last year, it’d felt so good. You’d _liked_ saving others. You’d thought you were making a difference. You kept doing the same this year.

A big difference you’d made. You thought you’d been helping the kid by refusing him, and what you’d made him was just-- dead. 

He _died_. You know other kids have died, in the monastery, or at least you’re pretty sure, but you don’t think you’ve ever been the direct cause of this. You don’t remember it, anyway. Maybe a lot of them were. Didn’t kids get taken away when they lost? Didn’t you win, _all the time_? Is destruction just in your blood? 

…. How self-invested are you, anyway? A kid just died, and all you can think about is yourself. You want to shake off your self-pity but you can’t. You need to, though. There’s no point to it. You have to deal with the fact that Yuuya is dead because of you. You hadn’t wanted him to be like you, but at least you’re alive, aren’t you? He isn’t. 

You have to… you have to… You have to do something, to atone. You’re not sure what. Revenge is really the only thing you know. 

You can work with that.

(You don’t really have any other option.)

\-------

You hear about Yuuya’s memorial service held at your school. You could go, if you wanted to. It’s not like your team expects you anywhere. 

(They didn’t seem to know what to say around you. At you.

They probably don’t know how to deal with you being a murderer, on top of everything else.)

But you don’t think you could ever go back to that place. Where you’d met him. You’d liked him, didn’t you? A little? Or had you been cold and dismissive back then too? How long did it take you to drive him to this?

So you go somewhere else instead.

“Home”.

\-------

The butler doesn’t seem surprised to see you. Maybe he heard about Yuuya. He’s probably figured out it was your fault. You run, someone follows, and they die. It’s not a hard connection to make.

(If you’d never come here… If you’d never gone to that school…)

You’re not here for the butler, though. You walk with a sure step to your father’s room.

There’s something you have to do.

\-------

The man is lying down, as usual. Staring and unseeing. Awake but not aware. 

You haven’t been back here since that first time, so the sight still makes you queasy, a bit. It’s nothing compared to the sight of Yuuya’s lifeless body in your arms, though. (You’d _felt_ his heart stop suddenly. It had been going so fast before that. Erratic. By the time the ambulance was called he was already dead.)

You breathe in. 

“... Hey, dad.” You say. Your voice is so quiet even to yourself, so you swallow bile and speak a bit more forcefully next, making eye contact. “It’s me. … Kai.” 

…

But nobody came. 

The breath you let out nearly collapses you. You hadn’t realized it before, but you were shaking. The relief doesn’t surprise you. As insane as it had been, this entire time, you’d been… afraid. That maybe… all that was needed... It was stupid, but you had never spoken to him, just in case. 

The slight pang of disappointment, though-- that takes you by surprise. Are you mourning a man you’ll never remember? The family you could’ve had? You don’t know. It doesn’t matter. They’re just feelings. Stupid. Fleeting. 

All you know is there’s nothing tying you here. There never has been. 

\-------

“I’m never coming back here.”

That’s what you tell the butler. 

Of course there’s a discussion that follows, an arrangement that’s made, but that’s the gist of it. The important part.

You were never meant to hold onto childish things.

\-------

It’s not a burning passion, not like you used to have, but a cold conviction. Hopefully, it’ll be good enough for your bey. You have to avenge him. 

It’s the only thing you can do.

\-------

You leave to take care of things for a few days and your team has somehow gotten itself in enough trouble that Max nearly tackles you in his haste to find help. 

Why do you ever leave them alone? They’re always doing stupid things.

\-------

You… don’t know how to ask who the hell the people they’re talking about are. The teens representing the people who killed Yuuya being their friends, or something?

You bite your tongue during these discussions. 

There’s only one thing you care about. The hows and whys-- who cares? 

You have to beat them for him. You _have_ to.

\-------

Everything seems a bit of a blur. You’re indignant over the littlest things and defensive, you’re sleeping even less than you used to and your team keeps having to try to push you into eating, but you have to do this.

You want them to take it seriously. It’s not their fault, only yours and this pseudo-organization’s, but they have to-- they have to win, too.

\-------

It feels like everything came down to this moment, and, like everything else, you’re screwing it up. 

he’s not… there. you know he isn’t, he’s dead, he’s _dead_ and that’s why you’re fighting but he’s _there_ but it’s your fault and you want, you need, you _have_ to apologize or ask for forgiveness or

snap out of it

I̢͠t̶͢ ẃ̵ás̶n'̧t͘͡ y̛o͡͡u͡r͠ ͡f̧a͠u̵͜l͝t̴͟

it was, you know it was, why can’t he see? shouldn’t he see? if it hadn’t been for you, if you weren’t who you were, if you-- you’re screwing up even now, you nearly lost, but you can’t concentrate he’s right there and he’s talking and you try to make them _see_ \-- why can’t they get it, why can’t anyone ever get it, it’s your fault! it’ s your fault it’s your fault it’s your fault itsyourfault it’s

y o u r f a u l t

“T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶.”

isn’t it? you know it isn’t, and you want to listen, you always want to listen to _him_ , he’s pulled you out of the dark before, but… it’s your fault, isn’t it?

(again, always, yours, yours, yours yours yoursyoursyours all you do is MAKE MISTAKES why can’t you just be BETTER why couldn’t you ever be BETTER)

“n̶o̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ **coward** ,” your opponent boasts, and you… snap out of it.

You burn. How dare he?

How

dare

they?

All of them, all of this, everything-- you hadn’t known Yuuya long but you’d seen it in him, that, that _thing_ , that thing that makes people _worth_ something, that thing that you-- that you-- you’re seething and you might be losing yourself in your own head but you’re not going to give them the satisfaction to see you fall, not like he did. Not after everything.

You burn, bright and strong, like you used to. Long enough to burn them all down.

\-------

You want to say you let it go, after that. Once you take them all down, once their entire building collapses behind you and you’ve done it and you’re shaking that guy’s hand like everything’s _fine_ \-- you let it go. You let him go.

It’s not as present, as constant. It’s just.. 

another bad memory.

\-------

You’ve always been on a protective streak with your team. You know that. You never liked it and you denied it a lot and … still want to, most days, but you can recognize that much.

With everything else that made you yourself drained out, leaving you exhausted with no purpose, you’ve still got that. It’s all that’s left of you. 

So you let it happen. What would you do, if something happened to them?

They’re all you’ve got left.

\-------

This would, of course, be a lot easier if they’d all just let you be elsewhere for five seconds without doing something stupid, like losing their holy beast or arguing with each other or going alone somewhere to get ambushed and--

You are so tired, is the thing. Even when you’re sleeping better.

You do whatever you can but you never feel like it’s enough.

\-------

You can’t stand being in the same room as Zeo.

It’s nothing against him. You even try to push for him to be accepted by the group in your own way, inasmuch as you ever push for anything. He’s a fine blader. He’s enthusiastic. He’s got that spirit that will make him a force to be reckoned with someday. He’s a bit reckless, but who on your team isn’t?

Overall, he…

Your push to be nice to him was not out of any real goodwill. You know what you’re doing even if no one else seems to have figured it out. You’re doing it for the same reason you can’t stay there when he’s around. Truth is, that same unbridled enthusiasm that makes him a good fit for your group, it’s the same thing that made you tolerate Yuuya in the first place. 

You know there’s no such thing as second chances, not for this, but you’re trying your best anyway.

\-------

The fact that your best at some point included calling him Kinomiya’s cute little apprentice will not be acknowledged at any point in time.

You’re trying, okay.

\-------

(It’s definitely hypocritical coming from you, of all people, but you have to ask at some point:

_Why_ is everyone so obsessed with holy beasts?

It’s getting annoying.)

\-------

You beat Dunga ( _finally_ ), get Byakko back for Rei and still don’t feel satisfied. Even when Kinomiya wins and you’re free of being constantly targeted by the Saint Shields, it doesn’t feel like much of a victory, somehow. Not for you.

It took you so long to get to this point. You hadn’t realized it before now, but it’s been… months. You’re nearing a full year since last year’s world championships. 

Have you gotten any stronger since then? Have you really accomplished anything? 

You can’t tell. 

You didn’t come back to become stronger. You don’t… _want_ to be tied to that anymore. When you made that choice, last year, you wanted there to be more to you than power and how to get it. You’d be lying to yourself if you pretended the need to fight, to _win_ against people wasn’t still there, a large driving force behind you, but that’s not why you came back. You’d come back because fighting a strong opponent made you feel like… made you feel…

Made you feel anything at all.

Oh.

\-------

You don’t pay mind to your… realization? Sudden bout of self-awareness? Whatever.

So long as you can still fight and help your team, you’re not a burden on them, passion lost or not. Besides, maybe all you need to do is fight Kinomiya again. That thought stayed with you even in the months you weren’t blading, as something you _wanted_ , so maybe it’s what you need. What will rekindle the fire in you. 

And it’s not like you don’t feel anything. You got annoyed. You got protective. You got vengeful. You’ve even felt some sort of joy, maybe. (You’re not great at identifying that one.) You were, at the very least, _content_. Better than those listless months at that man’s house.

You’re better than last year. You have to believe in that.

\-------

Daitenji announces the world championships this year on the down-low, a far smaller affair than last year’s fiasco with _way_ fewer participating countries. You know what that’s about.

The scandal surrounding the Borg following the tournament caught heat on more than the organization itself. Beyblade as a sport got flak for it; people planning to take over the world and child soldiers were considered kind of a big deal. The chairman of the BBA had also gotten flak for the fact that Russia had been hosting the mess, not to mention the publicized violence with Rei’s match against Boris. A lot of countries this year pulled out months in advance as a token show of protest, though you know they’ll be back next year now that the outrage has died down. Despite all this, the chairman might have been able to pull a great show out anyway if he’d been dedicated enough, but he’s spent most of the year dealing with people quite literally hunting his prized team and the defending champions. It’s a mercy on your team and the BBA to have the championship be a smaller, quicker affair. They can amass money and resources to do better next year.

Politics of beyblading aside, you’re relieved the setup and lack of participants gives you a prime chance at fighting Kinomiya in the tournament. Everything else you could care less about-- the only reason you participated in the championship last year was to find holy beasts. You genuinely think you’ve seen enough of those in the past two years to last you ten lifetimes. 

All you have to do is fight him at the top. That’s all you need.

Isn’t it?

\-------

Maybe you missed the build-up on Zeo’s sudden change of heart by being unable to stand being in his near vicinity, but okay, fine, all you have to do is fight Kinomiya at the top _and_ get him to stop moping around about Zeo.

(If he says one word about holy beasts you are Done. You don’t need the replay of yourself last year, alright. You do that one enough on your own.)

\-------

It’d be much easier to accomplish anything if you stopped fucking up and nearly losing, getting Dranzer destroyed in the process.

Your bey has suffered a lot of indignities this year, but your incapacity to not get it damaged one way or another has got to be the most annoying one. 

Part hunters, of all things. Like you needed that on top of everything else. You can’t even manage to feel more than indignation, even when Kinomiya offers to take revenge for you. You’d have balked at that at some point, but your rebuke is a lot less firm than you would’ve been before.

You try to pretend it’s you getting better about accepting help rather than anything else, but you know the truth.

You _have_ to try. You have to.

\-------

Exactly how many trees are going to fall on you this year? 

That you even have to think that question is offensive.

\-------

You want to fight Kinomiya with a single-minded devotion that nearly carries you through the whole tournament. 

Nearly.

How could you _lose_?

\-------

It’s like this: it doesn’t really matter. 

Nothing you ever did does. 

Why would this have been any different?

\-------

Why did you bother coming back to blading? The thought keeps bouncing back in your mind. Hadn’t you wanted it? Was it just not… enough? You lack the passion and drive. You’ve lost your holy beast. You-- your mistakes got a kid _killed_ this year. And you’re still playing at beyblade like you’re all that? What for? Because you wanted to be with your team? Because, at the end of the day, you don’t know who you are without beyblade? 

You kept thinking that you wanted to help them but the truth is you need them a lot more than they need you. Ever since they pulled you from that ice, all you’ve wanted was to repay them in some way but what use are you to them now? What use were you to them at all at any point?

You learned this lesson so long ago. You can’t save anyone. Why do you keep _trying_?

You’d never said it like it was but the truth is, earlier this year, you’d _quit_. You’d quit and you should just do the same. Suzaku can go to someone else. Someone who isn’t you. 

You’re not fit to wield any bey. 

You’re not fit for anything.

\-------

Hiromi seems to think they need you, but you can’t make yourself believe it. Because of that, it’s complete coincidence that you run into Kinomiya in his hour of need.

There’s something about Kinomiya that always seems to awaken something in you.

Whether it’s something he says or something he does, good or bad, something about him just… makes you feel alive again. 

This time, it’s his struggle. Last year, you’d…

(“I want to make him feel even a little bit better,” he’d said, unaware you could hear him. Unaware that him just saying that _had_.)

You’d never understood that urge before except now you get it. You want him to stand up. You want him to do what he did last year, when he stood alone in a pillar of ice and laughed in the face of an opponent far stronger than he was, unafraid. 

Just a little bit better. 

Maybe there is something you’re good for after all.

\-------

You don’t know how to express your feelings but you want him to understand them. 

Just being with them, with him, even when you don’t feel like yourself, you feel--

like you’re home.

You don’t think he understood, not fully, but you don’t think you fully get it yourself yet. 

Maybe someday, you can make him see.

\-------

When everything is over, you find yourself staring at the picture your team took.

Despite everything, it’s still you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONE YEAR LATER... ok in my defense i wanted to finish watching the s2 subs and that was hard. i hate vforce. a lot. 
> 
> this was a lot of me scrambling to try to make both s2's abysmal writing make sense in terms of the universe and in terms of kai's character, up to and including random one-off lines like kai's dad existing (you're welcome for the worst headcanon of all time re: that) and kai spending most of vforce being ... not ... written into episodes. personally, i've always felt that the only way for s2 kai to work is if he's depressed. he doesn't care as much, he looks bored all the time, he quits his interest(s) except in weird spikes, aaaand then a kid dies so whatever. let's go full dark. 
> 
> ... except for the kai/takao bits because, listen, i choose to interpret kai's character how i want and if part of that is a little bit gay then listen, who can blame me. it can probably still be read as mostly friendship. [sweats nervously] anyway the grev part will only come when im done watching the subs for that so it'll be a while. it will also hopefully be less of me tl;dr every single kai detail that does not need explanation but that i always wanted one for anyway. 
> 
> or maybe it will because who will stop me.


End file.
